Well, I guess the peer reviewers had the day off, or were overstaffed by egg-head PhDs in this instance.

The factual part is factual, and not all that surprising; that humans can throw a baseball faster and with more accuracy than chimpanzees. The report attributes this primarily to the difference in the shoulder configuration of the two animals.

But look at the wild excursion into speculation as to why and when these differences came to be:

. . . humans are the only species that can throw with great speed and precision, and this behavior first evolved nearly 2 million years ago, when anatomical changes to the shoulder, arm and torso likely bolstered the hunting prowess of extinct human ancestors, said study lead author Neil Roach, a postdoctoral scientist at George Washington University’s Center for the Advanced Study of Hominid Paleobiology in Washington, D.C.

And this:

Three primary features in the shoulder, arm and torso evolved in human ancestors to facilitate this type of motion and energy storage, Roach said. The anatomical changes include the expansion of the waist, which enabled the torso to rotate independently from the hips; the lowering and relaxation of the shoulders, which altered the orientation of many of the muscles that store energy; and the twisting of the upper arm bone that helped humans build up more energy during throws.

These changes in bone and muscular anatomy likely occurred about 2 million years ago among early human ancestors, called Homo erectus, the researchers said. The evolved features would have helped early humans become more skilled at hunting large game, they added.

“The ability to throw was one of a handful of changes that enabled us to become carnivores, which then triggered a host of changes that occurred later in our evolution,” study co-author Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological sciences at Harvard University, said in a statement. “If we were not good at throwing and running and a few other things, we would not have been able to evolve our large brains, and all the cognitive abilities such as language that come with it. If it were not for our ability to throw, we would not be who we are today.”

The new study’s findings were published online today (June 26) in the journal Nature.

Is there evidence to back up these speculations? How is the ability to throw fast and accurate linked to large brains and language? Total fabrication is what you are reading hear and expected to swallow as truth and science.